lesiastical court
except this of excommunication.

205. This proposal may seem strange to many persons; but assuredly this,
if not much more than this, is commanded in Scripture, first in the
(much-abused) text, "Tell it unto the Church;" and most clearly in 1
Cor. v. 11-13; 2 Thess. iii. 6 and 14; 1 Tim. v. 8 and 20; and Titus
iii. 10; from which passages we also know the two proper degrees of the
penalty. For Christ says, Let him who refuses to hear the Church, "be
unto thee as an heathen man and a publican," But Christ ministered to
the heathen, and sat at meat with the publican; only always with
declared or implied expression of their inferiority; here, therefore, is
one degree of excommunication for persons who "offend" their brethren,
committing some minor fault against them; and who, having been
pronounced in error by the body of the Church, refuse to confess their
fault or repair it; who are then to be no longer considered members of
the Church; and their recovery to the body of it is to be sought exactly
as it would be in the case of an heathen. But covetous persons, railers,
extortioners, idolaters, and those guilty of other gross crimes, are to
be entirely cut off from the company of the believers; and we are not so
much as to eat with them. This last penalty, however, would require to
be strictly guarded, that it might not be abused in the infliction of
it, as it has been by the Romanists. We are not, indeed, to eat with
them, but we may exercise all Christian charity towards them, and give
them to eat, if we see them in hunger, as we ought to all our enemies;
only we are to consider them distinctly as our _enemies_: that is to
say, enemies of our Master, Christ; and servants of Satan.

206. As for the rank or name of the officers in whom the authorities,
either of teaching or discipline, are to be vested, they are left
undetermined by Scripture. I have heard it said by men who know their
Bible far better than I, that careful examination may detect evidence of
the existence of three orders of Clergy in the Church. This may be; but
one thing is very clear, without any laborious examination, that
"bishop" and "elder" sometimes mean the same thing; as, indisputably, in
Titus i. 5 and 7, and I Peter v. I and 2, and that the office of the
bishop or overseer was one of considerably less importance than it is
with us. This is palpably evident from I Timothy iii., for what divine
among us, writing of episcopal prop